The King's Speech
by Belphegor
Summary: It doesn't matter if Newkirk misses it. It's not that important... But then again, maybe it is.


**Author's notes**: I started this one in mid-December last year and hit a wall. I kept coming back to continue it and, lo and behold! Finally a seasonal story published in the actual season it's set in!

A great big thank you to Emily for the fireside chats and the beta, and to Abracadebra for the time correction. Joyeux Noël and happy holidays to you all :o)

_Disclaimer: The characters and settings belong to Albert Ruddy and Bernard Fein's estate. The speeches mentioned are accessible through the Wikisource website with the search 'Royal Christmas Message'._

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><p><strong>The King's Speech<strong>

"Still, you gotta admit, we could be a lot worse off."

Newkirk tugged his field service cap as low as he possibly could – no matter how poor a protection the wet, cold material offered, it was better than nothing on his head – and turned away from the small iced-up window to glare at Carter. The American had found something to sit on, a crate so low that his knees went up halfway to his chest. The result looked slightly ridiculous. But knowing Carter, he probably didn't give a care how it looked, and was just happy to be off his feet after trudging in the snow for half an hour.

Carter did have a point, of course, but sometimes his dogged optimism just rubbed Newkirk the wrong way.

"'Worse off'? We're stuck in some shoddy little hut, two miles from civilisation, practically about to get completely snowed in, on ruddy _Christmas Day_ – and I'm all out of cigarettes. How exactly could this get any worse?"

He should have known better than asking Carter, who replied reasonably, as though pointing out an obvious flaw in a plan, "We could be out there right now. At least we don't have to worry about the snow."

"So we'll freeze to death, but we'll be dry. Hurray."

"No, we won't."

"What, be dry?"

"Freeze to death."

It usually took much more than that to change Newkirk's mind, or failing that, lift his spirits. Carter's calm statement could very well come from the sort of wide-eyed idealism which the Englishman prided himself on having shed a long time ago, along with other embarrassing youthful qualities.

But there was something about the certainty in Carter's tone that didn't feel like simple inane faith in some celestial intervention that would mysteriously get them home, safe and warm. His voice had been matter-of-fact, almost as though he knew something that Newkirk didn't.

Carter had been in Stalag XIII for about a month. During that month Newkirk had learned to see past the goofy, absent-minded exterior. Not that Andrew Carter was _not_ goofy and absent-minded – he certainly was – but he was also a lot more than that.

Hence why Newkirk instinctively glanced out the window again, just in case the snow had thinned in the last few minutes and Carter had somehow known it.

It hadn't. It was falling even harder than before they had found the tiny cabin, to the point that everything was white with a few grey patches. Even the nearby trees had disappeared behind a curtain of silence. Only gusts of wind could be heard from outside, vague, short blows, which sounded like a low rumble throughout the woods.

Newkirk suppressed a sigh. When he turned to Carter again, the American had taken off his gloves and was rubbing some warmth back into his hands.

"How d'you know that, then?" he asked in a voice which had lost a bit of its edge in spite of his best efforts.

Carter looked up and shrugged. "Well, we won't be here long enough. Snow's not gonna fall like that till sunset – it'll clear up in a bit."

"And what makes you say that?" It was supposed to be sarcasm, but it came out mildly interested instead.

"The wind, for a start; I mean, it looked awfully windy up there, so it makes the clouds go by faster. And also a bunch of other things. I – I thought it was obvious."

It probably was to Carter. To Newkirk, who had spent almost all his life in London and its own particular climate (sometimes you couldn't see ten feet ahead of you for the fog), it was guesswork at best.

Guesswork was better than nothing, though. They were still stuck in something that looked like an eight-by-six-feet hunting cabin (without firearms and ammunition, of course, or anything that might have been useful to anyone but the owner) for goodness knew how long, with hard-earned intelligence which right now was perfectly useless, and nothing to pass the time.

They had even missed the Christmas lunch, and Newkirk had to admit – at least to himself if not to another soul – that he had been looking forward to what LeBeau could possibly come up with this year.

Last night had been fairly nice. Not a proper Christmas dinner, but the meal had been decent and warm, the atmosphere enjoyable, and for a little while it had been almost enough to forget their bleak situation in a bleaker world. Considerably better than last year, and the year before that.

_Speaking of which…_

Newkirk glanced at his watch – the warm skin of his wrist immediately stung in the cold air – and discovered with dismay that it had stopped some time after they had left the Underground agent in Hammelburg.

"Carter? Have you got the time?"

"Sure. It's two five – fourteen oh five, I mean. Don't worry, sunset's in about two hours, we'll be back before that."

"If you say so." Another glance out the window confirmed that snow was still falling harder than ever. "As long as we're back before four."

Carter, deeming his fingers appropriately warm, was putting his gloves back on. He stopped fiddling with the hem of his left glove to look curiously at Newkirk.

"Why?" He grinned. "You got a date?"

Something else which Newkirk had learned about Carter in the last month was that he tended to make jokes and quips nobody else found funny. This one was no exception, and fell completely flat – at least to Newkirk.

Not that he was _wrong_, exactly. Not entirely.

Newkirk silently debated with himself on whether explaining the reason for his hurry or not. He was pretty sure Carter would not understand, although that had more to do with Carter's being American than Newkirk doubting his discernment; but there was a very good chance than Carter wouldn't laugh. Probably.

After all, until the snow subsided, there was little else to do but talk…

Newkirk upturned his collar in a mostly futile gesture to keep warm, and leaned on the wooden wall with his arms folded across his chest.

"The Christmas message is on at four today. Well, at home it's three, but there's an hour's difference here."

Carter blinked. Whatever he had been expecting, a straight, honest answer obviously had not been it.

Newkirk hesitated a little, but continued in what he hoped was an offhand enough tone, "The King goes on the radio on Christmas, says a few words. It's not a tradition or anything – at least before the war it wasn't. But there was a Christmas message in '40 and '41 and word is there's going to be one this year, too. Only, this year _we_'ve got a radio, so I thought we could listen, me and the other guys. See what it's all about for once."

Any minute now, Carter would laugh, or at least get that blank expression on his face he did when faced with something he thought was incredibly stupid or just plain incomprehensible. The idea of risking detection just to listen to a speech – the words of which would probably sound hollow and meaningless to a bunch of POWs who had to face the reality of captivity _and_ the dangers of sabotage and espionage every single day – certainly didn't strike Newkirk as particularly smart. But if he were to be honest with himself, he was looking forward to it.

The possibility that Davies, Harper, Saunders and the rest of the subjects of His Majesty George VI in Stalag XIII were, as well, did very little to make him less self-conscious.

Any minute now…

Carter drew his knees together for warmth and said in quiet sort of voice, "President Roosevelt does 'fireside chats' on the radio a couple of times a year where he explains why they passed this bill or that law and what changed and why. He talked about the war a lot since Hitler invaded Poland." He paused, hesitated a little bit, and went on. "We didn't have a radio in Stalag V, so I missed the last two, but I kinda hope we can listen to the next one."

This was so completely unexpected that Newkirk couldn't find anything else to say. This didn't seem lost on Carter, who smiled a little and asked, "What'd the King say last year?"

"According to Mavis – that's me sister – something about being kind to each other, and necessary sacrifices for the common good." The letter was ten months old and somewhat foggy, but Mavis' letters were his only proper link to everyday London life. As such, he treasured this precious tether to home, and tried to commit every word to memory. "He said he thought about the girls who joined up – she was right chuffed about that, she'd just joined up with the ATS as a clerk – and didn't forget the POWs."

"That's nice of him."

"Yeah, thought so. But he's the King, isn't he? It's practically mandatory for him to think of the ones who died, the poor blokes who lost arms or legs, or prisoners like us."

"I guess. But it's always nice to know _someone_ is thinking of us."

Carter had uttered this sentence innocently enough. By the last syllable, though, his eyes lost a little of their focus and his face fell slightly.

Everyone in camp carried fears, insecurities, and guilt, sometimes about getting caught, sometimes about surviving when others didn't, and sometimes both. They rarely talked about that among themselves; it was hard enough to stare ugly truths about yourself in the face, let alone share them with someone else who might dismiss them as unimportant in comparison to their own. When they did talk, it always came as a happy sort of shock to find out or be reminded that they were not alone.

One of the most persistent of these doubts was the fear of being forgotten. The only tangible proof they had of the existence of friends, wives, families were dog-eared photos and words penned on paper. It was terribly tempting to give in to the cold little voice saying, "You're abandoned. Forgotten. Everything you love is far away, and nobody remembers you." On bad days, loved ones were phantom faces prisoners desperately tried to hang on to; sometimes the only things that remained were fleeting memories of laughter, a trace of perfume or the taste of beloved lips… And they hoped, every single one of them, that the ones back home were struggling as hard as _they_ were to keep these memories, too.

Hence the usual chaos whenever mail came through: everybody jumped on whoever got lumbered with the mail bag. Every letter was reassurance that the world had not, in fact, forgotten them.

Newkirk saw his own doubts reflected on Carter's face. He left his post at the iced-up window and went to sit beside the American, making a show of rubbing his hands together and chafing his arms, and trying not to look as awkward as he felt.

"Budge up, there's a mate. You got people back home who think of you, yeah? I've seen you get letters last week."

Carter's smile was quick, almost an afterthought, but something in his face shifted and he looked much more cheerful.

"Oh sure. I got my folks, my brother Sam – he's a mechanic on an air base ten miles from home, some guys have all the luck – my grandpa Oscar who's still in Bullfrog, and Mary Jane, and Larry, Gene, Bill, Alice…"

"There you go." Carter could carry on for hours if not stopped at some point. "I get your point, though. I reckon it _is_ nice of him. And he is pretty decent, King or no King."

Newkirk had never been that enthusiastic a monarchist before. He had gone to watch the Coronation procession with Mavis and their mum five years ago, seen the gilded coaches go down Piccadilly, listened to the speeches, and then went on with his life. The King and the Royal Family were faces in the paper, and every now and then voices on the wireless, something you knew existed but never interfered with normal, common everyday life. They just were there, like the Nelson Column or the treacle tart his mum used to make for his birthday – you couldn't imagine them _not_ being there, but you didn't think of them every day, either.

And then war had broken out.

Suddenly, the King's speeches on the radio had become very important indeed.

And then Newkirk had been captured two hundred yards from a beach at Dunkirk. There, surrounded by verdigris uniforms and orders barked in German, he had felt more English than he ever had.

The King _was_ important. Old Churchill was important. So were his mum's treacle tart and Nelson's Column. Thinking of these things – and so many others – meant that, no matter where he might be or what might happen, Peter Newkirk always knew where he was going, and what he was going home to one day. Hopefully.

Carter's hands must have been as warm as he could get them, because he put on his gloves again and tucked them under his armpits.

"I hope my folks are doing okay back home. What time d'you think it is in Indiana?"

"I don't know, do I? Me watch stopped. That's why I asked you earlier."

"Oh, right." Carter quickly looked at his. "It's three-ish, so… Nine in the morning. Wow."

"_Three_?" Newkirk jumped to his feet. The cabin was so small that he was back at the window in just one stride.

To his dismay, it was snowing just as hard, with no signs of slowing down. He gave an annoyed sigh and his breath fogged up the little window.

"Still snowing, huh?" Newkirk decided Carter's fatalism was almost as infuriating as his unshakable habit of seeing a silver lining everywhere. He bit back a sarcastic retort and sat down next to him, crossing his arms against his chest. Carter appeared quite unruffled.

"You know, we can still make it back to camp in time for your speech."

"It's not _my_ speech, it's… Forget it."

"Okay, it's not _your_ speech, but it's important, right?"

"Right, but –"

"Then we'll just try to make it in time."

"If that bloody snow lets us," muttered Newkirk. Carter looked pointedly at him, then got to his feet and walked over to the window. The temperature plummeted the second he left the crate Newkirk and he had claimed as a bench.

Carter stayed in front of the iced-up window for what seemed like a long, long time.

"Well?" Newkirk finally asked, a little more shortly than he perhaps should have. "How does it look?"

"Not… really good. For now," added Carter. "But it could stop any time."

"Perfect. Couldn't dream of a better way to spend Christmas day, really."

Carter looked at him, but didn't comment. Instead he returned to his previous place beside Newkirk, who despite his foul mood was grateful for the added warmth of the American's shoulder against his.

After two minutes spent fidgeting, watching his breath steam in front of him, and trying to find new (or, failing that, interesting) things to look at, Newkirk gave up and glanced sideways at Carter.

"So, if it's morning in Indiana, what's your family doing right now?"

For a second Newkirk thought Carter would just stare at him and keep silent; he would be well within his rights, considering Newkirk's last remark. But, after thinking for a little bit, his face brightened up.

"Well, my kid cousins get up real early on Christmas day, so they'll be playing with their presents and eating the tree ornaments even though they're not supposed to before lunch –"

"Wait," said Newkirk, "eating _ornaments_? What do you put on a Christmas tree?"

"Oh, cranberries, nuts, paper things… My cousin Jake and his wife like to put marzipan in theirs. My mom makes cookies in funny shapes and hangs 'em on the branches with a piece of string. My folks used to put candles on the tree, too, but one time me and Sam almost burned the whole tree down, so since then it's mostly the safe stuff."

"You don't say," Newkirk said carefully, deliberately not grinning.

"I know, right? It's not like we made a habit of it." Carter rubbed his already red nose. "Well, Sam didn't, anyway, but that's just because I'm the chemistry expert and he's better at maths and mechanics and whatnot…"

Carter abruptly stopped talking. When Newkirk looked at him, he was staring down at his hands, his face falling gradually until all trace of his previous cheer was gone.

Newkirk lightly poked him in the shoulder. "Hey. You all right?" he asked gently, despite knowing the answer. "You kinda trailed off here."

Carter blinked and seemed to snap out of his glum reverie, but Newkirk knew better.

"Yeah, I just… Every now and then it just hits me how _far_ they all are, and… Well. It's the first time I'm not home for Christmas, ever. I lucked out last year – got a two-day furlough. But…"

"But then you were sent to England and got shot down," murmured Newkirk, trying not to let his mind flash back to his own capture, in 1940.

"Uh-huh. It was bad enough at Thanksgiving, but at least we had that synthetic fuel plant job, remember?"

"Oh, I remember." Carter's fireworks had been spectacular that night, as though violent and colourful explosions were the perfect remedy to homesickness. They could probably have seen the blaze all the way from Berlin.

"How, uh…"

One thing that Newkirk had learned about Carter in the month or so the American had been in Stalag XIII was that he rarely hesitated before he spoke. Sometimes it was even a problem. But Newkirk found he preferred Carter blurting things out before thinking than not saying enough, or not finding words. It felt wrong.

"How many Christmases did you spend here?"

"It's my third," muttered Newkirk. After a beat he added glumly, "You'd think I'd get used to spending Christmas in that miserable place."

Carter hesitated some more and asked, in an uncharacteristically small voice, "It doesn't get any easier, does it?"

"No. It doesn't." As usual when things got a little too personal, Newkirk fell back on sarcasm. "Last year we asked Klink for a Christmas tree for each barracks – figured it was the least he could do, since the Germans practically invented the bloody thing in the first place. And it's not like we couldn't just walk fifty feet into the forest to get some."

"You asked Klink to get you saws and let you go out of camp for pine trees?" said Carter slowly. "How'd _that_ go?"

"As well as you can imagine."

A small lopsided grin made its way on Carter's face, and Newkirk was strangely glad to see it.

"Still, it wasn't _all_ bad," he went on, more conversationally. "At least Miller and Allen – from Barracks 6 – they somehow got enough wood to make dreidels to send home to their kids. I think Corporal Jähn's got something to do with that."

"The Barracks 6 guard? Old guy with a limp? Why did he do that?"

"Nobody knows. And I know for a fact that a lot of candles mysteriously appeared in Barracks 5, 6, 8 and 14 around mid-December." Carter looked blank for a second, then nodded as he understood. "Some of them were ours – we reckoned that we could do this much, at least, since there was no way those guys could get their hands on an actual Hanukkah menorah."

"So everybody chipped in, huh?" Carter smiled. "That's nice."

"Like I said, we could do that much. In the end they still were half a dozen candles short, though."

"Oh." Obviously Carter had expected a less depressing ending.

"Yeah." Newkirk paused, finding with a mixture of dismay and amusement that he was looking forward to the American's reaction to the rest of the story. "So it was a really good thing that Schultz handed Flight Sergeant Rutherford – that was the senior POW officer before the Colonel – a whole bag of candles, apparently because blackouts were frequent since the Allies bombed that power plant near Bad Kissingen."

It was worth it just to see the smile dawn in Carter's eyes and light up his whole face. Sometimes, just sometimes, it felt good to be on the receiving end of that sort of warmth.

Newkirk had not been aware he had actually needed it until he realised that the familiar cold knot which settled in the pit of his stomach around important dates he could have spent with Mavis had loosened its hold somewhat.

He couldn't have helped the slight smile that answered Carter's even if he had wanted to.

"D'you think Schultz did that on purpose?"

"I'm fairly sure he did."

"But he's a German! And he's the Sergeant of the Guard!"

"He's also not such a bad bloke. Sometimes."

Newkirk had half a mind to also remind Carter not to rely on that particular fact too much, as Schultz could have unpredictable reactions to routine "monkey business". But that was a conversation for another time.

Besides, considering Carter chose this moment to look up sharply at the window, it was doubtful the American would have listened anyway.

"What's wrong?" Newkirk whispered.

Carter got to his feet, made one uncertain step towards the window, then grabbed the door handle in a decidedly confident way. When he wrenched the door open, Newkirk had to squint against the suddenly much more intense light.

"What did I tell you?" said Carter triumphantly. "Now all we gotta do is go back to camp."

The snow had dwindled down to a few stray snowflakes lazily drifting down. With everything that had fallen while they waited, Newkirk had half expected to make his way back through a three-foot-deep blanket of snow, and braced himself for an arduous trek across the woods…

The snow barely reached mid-calf at the deepest. That _would_ make the trip longer than usual, but not _that_ much more difficult.

Sometimes being a pessimist meant being happily surprised.

They didn't speak as they returned to camp. Newkirk took the lead, the way back bright and clear in his memory. He had to make a conscious effort not to go too fast – the snow did not only make it harder to trudge along, it also hid all the brambles and the little holes that were treacherous enough when you could see them. Behind him, Carter plodded on with the steady pace of someone who knew how to walk through snow and not get tired after the first half mile.

At some point Newkirk realised he hadn't asked Carter for the time in a while. The next second he knew he wouldn't until they were back. If they got back in time for the King's speech, so much the better. If they were late, then there was no need to hurry more than they already did.

Miraculously enough, although they did trip a few times, neither of them fell.

Nevertheless, the fake tree stump protruding from the white blanket had seldom looked more inviting. It was a beacon that promised dry clothes, hot coffee and warm companionship.

Newkirk shook his head. _I really _have_ been in that lousy place too long_.

Night was already falling by the time they climbed down the tunnel and trotted to the radio room, soaked through from the waist down. Newkirk's toes were curled up in his shoes, his socks in that peculiar state between soggy and iced up. It was hard to tell whether he or Carter was shivering hardest.

To his relief, and probably Carter's as well, nobody in Barracks 2 berated them on their late arrival; they must have been watching the skies as anxiously as Newkirk himself had. In the blink of an eye and a whirlwind of uniforms, the two men were deposited on a bench as close as possible to the stove, wearing dry clothes, nursing steaming mugs (wonder of wonders, Newkirk's actually contained tea, which he fervently hoped LeBeau had had nothing to do with) and wrapped in blankets so efficiently that Carter's nose, hands and a tuft of still wet hair were the only indications that someone inhabited the shapeless lump beside Newkirk.

It took the two of them fifteen minutes, give or take, to stop shaking.

_Guess __it got__ colder than __you__ thought, __Andrew_.

After a little while, Newkirk felt thawed out enough to reach out of the blanket and put his empty mug on the table, and asked, "What time is it?"

Kinch shot him a curious look, but glanced at his watch and said, "Five ten. Don't worry, you didn't miss any roll calls."

"Yeah, the goons were too busy eating their Christmas lunch to bother with one earlier," went Olsen's voice somewhere on his right.

"Which reminds me," LeBeau chimed in, adding something into the casserole gently simmering on the stove, "we saved you some of _our_ Christmas lunch." His tone made it clear which he thought was the superior meal. "Dinde aux marrons sans marrons et purée de panais et pommes de terre. The parsnips outnumber the potatoes ten to one and I had to do the 'turkey with chestnuts' without chestnuts, but the others seemed to like it anyway."

Carter looked enthusiastic, but Newkirk had only been half-listening after Kinch's answer.

So he had missed the speech – again.

He knew he shouldn't take it to heart. After all, they were lucky enough to be able to _do_ things, help people, covertly fight the Nazis on their own soil where they thought they were safe; it wasn't difficult to imagine how the other POWs must be faring, trying to get actual news through makeshift radios and not go stir-crazy, battling cold, fear, meagre rations and the boredom that made you forget to look everywhere when you tried to make a run for it. That kind of life had been theirs, not so long ago.

They were not helpless any more, at least, in Stalag XIII. They could, and did, fight. They – _he_ – did not need well-meaning but long-winded speeches to urge them on.

So why was he feeling so dejected that he had missed the Christmas message?

Maybe it was just the cold and the exhaustion speaking. Or so Newkirk tried to convince himself.

Carter had retreated to his bunk, still wrapped in his blanket, and struck a friendly conversation with Olsen, stealing glances at Newkirk from time to time. Newkirk remained near the stove, half listening to Kinch and LeBeau chat over the casserole, enjoying despite himself the smell of whatever was cooking in there, and trying to forget that he was in a prison in a foreign country and hadn't seen his only family in years.

So far, it was not working. Not as well as he could usually make it, anyway.

Maybe he ended up nodding off a little bit, because he almost gave a start when Colonel Hogan walked briskly in front of him to get coffee.

"Hey, Newkirk. You're looking less blue by the minute."

"Glad to hear it, sir."

"I think Cootes, Allen, Collins and Webb are headed to the tunnel at eighteen hundred. You can go with them, if you want."

Newkirk squinted up at Hogan, slightly puzzled. "What for?"

"Well, lately it's come to my attention that –" Kinch interrupted his conversation with LeBeau and raised an eyebrow at Hogan, who didn't miss a beat. "– That a lot of people have been asking Kinch if there was a way they could listen to the message King George usually gives on Christmas. There's no way in hell all of his Gracious Majesty's Stalag XIII subjects can disappear at the same time without the Krauts thinking something fishy is going on, so we figured we'd be safer recording the message and giving whoever wants to hear it a few minutes in the radio room. So if you're interested, next broadcast's in…" Hogan looked at his watch. "Half an hour."

"You _recorded_ it."

"Sure. I don't know if it's a tradition, but it's important to a lot of people here, so that makes it important, period."

Hogan lightly clapped Newkirk's shoulder, sipped at his hot coffee, and walked away. Newkirk wondered whether he had imagined the knowing look and the slight smile on his CO's face. Knowing the Colonel, probably not.

Carter was a lot less subtle about it. He grinned at Newkirk in a way that threatened to split his face in two. But that was Carter's enthusiasm for you.

Half an hour later, Newkirk was standing next between Collins and Cootes, a little embarrassed but happier than he'd felt in weeks. He had not realised – or hadn't wanted to – how much he had been looking forward to this until he had been denied… Denied what, indeed? The illusion that His Majesty George VI was speaking to him personally, or to POWs of the British Empire in general? The comfort of hearing that funny RP accent that only nobs and BBC people seemed to have? Or perhaps, simply, some reassurance that his island was still there, that her people still fought and lived on despite all odds, despite the bombs, despite Hitler, despite all those who sought to bring them to their knees?

Maybe it wasn't that important. What was important was that slow, halting voice; the deliberate silences before difficult consonants only made it more solemn and dignified. There was a perpetual battle there, too – the King's constant war against his stammer was widely known. But he delivered the message, and for the first time since the war started Newkirk was glad that he got to hear it.

"_It is at Christmas more than at any other time that we are conscious of the dark shadow of war…_"

Peter Newkirk thought about his home, his sister and the hot mug of coffee burning his fingers, and listened to the King's speech.

THE END

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><p><span>NotesTranslations:

_ATS_: Auxiliary Territorial Service, the women's branch of the British Army.

_Dinde aux marrons sans marrons et purée de panais et pommes de terre_: Turkey with chestnuts without chestnuts (it loses a little in the translation, doesn't it?) and mashed parsnips and potatoes. The "dinde aux marrons" is a French staple of Christmas dinner/lunch, although goose, capon and duck are very popular too. A turkey would have been a lot easier to get at the time, but I bet it still cost a fortune on the black market.

I've read that a more precise term for the nine-branched candelabrum is 'chanukkiyah'; since I don't know how familiar Newkirk would be with the word, I settled for 'Hanukkah menorah'.

Also, if the guys can have a printing press in the tunnels, nobody will convince me that they don't have recording equipment, perhaps with instantaneous discs or acetates. I'm sure they could find a valid use for it. (Seriously, though, how on earth did they get a _printing press_ down there!?)

Thank you for reading!


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